Eight Acres

Last week was Pete and my 5th wedding anniversary.  I wrote a series of posts about our wedding on our first anniversary.  You won't be surprised that it was very simple and frugal and I didn't wear white! A simple wedding in several parts  - location, guest list and invitations, accommodation A simple wedding part 2  - the dress and flowers A simple wedding part 3  - the ceremony A simple wedding part 4  - the reception family portrait Also, our little Taz turns two in October.  We got her from the market in the first weekend of January 2014, and at the time she was 12 weeks old, which puts her birthday some time in October.  Its hard to believe this little furball has been with us such a short time.  When she first came home she had a habit of hiding under the bed, that lasted until she got too big to fit under there.  Lately she has developed a habit of lying ON the bed, but its just too cute to see her napping the...

Pete and I got married on the beach four years ago yesterday (23.10.10).  I wrote ALL about it one our first anniversary, so if you're interested in simple wedding ideas, here are the links: A simple wedding in several parts  - location, guest list and invitations, accommodation A simple wedding part 2  - the dress and flowers A simple wedding part 3  - the ceremony A simple wedding part 4  - the reception Any simple wedding tips to add? Clever Chicks Blog Hop Simple Saturdays Blog Hop From the Farm Blog Hop Homestead Barn Hop The Homeacre Hop

Today is our third wedding anniversary. I did a series of posts about our wedding, and I'm glad I did, because the memory is fading. I consider that we had a simple wedding, it was certainly cheap and not very flash. We enjoyed the day and spending time with family and friends. I wrote these posts to help people realise that they don't have to follow the normal commercial wedding, and its easy to do something different and simple if you want to and you don't have to spend a fortune (save it for the honeymoon). A simple wedding in several parts - location, guest list and invitations, accommodation A simple wedding part 2 - the dress and flowers A simple wedding part 3 - the ceremony A simple wedding part 4 - the reception We are continuing the tradition of not going on a honeymoon or doing much for our anniversary because we have too many animals :) This year we are just having a simple dinner at home together on the veranda, looking out over all those...

Tomorrow is our second wedding anniversary.  I had to think for a minute then, it feels like more than two years since we stood on the beach, surrounded by close friends and family, and promised to look after each other no matter what happened.  So much has happened in those two years, good and bad, I could swear it was 10 years ago! Last year I did a series of posts about our wedding, and I'm glad I did, because the memory is fading.  I consider that we had a simple wedding, it was certainly cheap and not very flash.  We enjoyed the day and spending time with family and friends.  I wrote these posts to help people realise that they don't have to follow the normal commercial wedding, and its easy to do something different and simple if you want to. A simple wedding in several parts - location, guest list and invitations, accommodation A simple wedding part 2 - the dress and flowers A simple wedding part 3 - the ceremony A simple wedding par...

For the start of the story, see  A simple wedding in several parts ,  A simple wedding part 2  and  A simple wedding part 3 . THE RECEPTION DECORATIONS For the reception we hired chairs, chair covers and sashes, table cloths and runners and a small cake table from Bundaberg Party Hire . The colour options were fairly limited, so I chose white and gold to match the beach theme. Everything else we needed was in the hall already. The hired gear was delivered on the Friday afternoon when we had the keys for the hall. My husband, my cousin and I set up all the tables and put the covers on the chairs, but when it came to them helping me to tie the sashes, it became clear that we needed more females to help, so we left that for my mum and aunties to finish (boys can’t tie neat bows! but are very good at tying things onto the back of the ute). On the day of the wedding we spent the morning decorating the hall and as my family had nothing else to do, being on holiday at ...

See Part 1 for the start of the story, and then Part 2 ..... THE CEREMONY We had the ceremony on the beach at Woodgate. We hired plastic chairs for the beach and bought a pair of white peace flags and a beach style “isle runner” (both ordered from the net, the runner was supposed to be hemp, but turned out to be plastic). We probably could have done more to decorate the ceremony, but the beach was a beautiful backdrop, I just didn't want to have to buy or hire heaps of stuff and then have to deal with returning/owning it afterwards! My husband and I walked down to the beach and down the isle together, with Elvis Priestley’s “Love me Tender” playing in the background. When we made that decision to walk down the isle together, I was worried that my dad would be offended and I asked mum what she thought. She said that they had done the same thing (it was the 70s after all!), so we could proceed without any worries! I think some people may have thought it was a bit odd, but it f...

See Part 1 for the start of the story..... THE DRESS About 6 months before the wedding I persuaded my husband to come into Toowoomba to look at some dresses. I said in my previous post that neither of us were very aware of what was “supposed” to be done at weddings, and this included the stupid rule about husbands-to-be not seeing the dress. For goodness sakes, we live in the same tiny house, how was I going to hide it from him!? We couldn’t work out why all the wedding shop attendants were getting so funny about him being there until I mentioned it to a lady at work and found out the reason! Anyway, I wasn’t terribly keen on wearing a white dress, nor anything overly sequined or lacy. As usual, I was going for simple, but that seemed difficult to explain. I tried on a few white ones and they felt totally wrong. Finally one of the attendants actually listened to me and suggested a nice simple bridesmaid dress. The dress was made to order, so I was able to chose the size and co...

I've had a few comments on my first post about our simple wedding with people telling me about their own simple weddings, so I thought it would be fun to have a linking post.  You can write a post on your own blog about your simple wedding (and don't be stingy with the photos!) and then link it to this post and link this post to your post and then everyone can have a look and it might give some other people some nice simple wedding ideas.  I'm not going to make up any rules here, if you thought your wedding was simple, then it was, that's fine with me, everyone has their own interpretation, that's what makes it such a lovely day.  So go ahead and leave your link in the comments. this is my favourite wedding photo A simple wedding in several parts  - location, guest list and invitations, accommodation A simple wedding part 2  - the dress and flowers A simple wedding part 3  - the ceremony A simple wedding part 4  - the reception

The 23rd of October is our first wedding anniversary. We had a simple wedding (as I’m sure you would expect of me by now), which we mostly planned and paid for ourselves. The months immediately before our wedding were incredibly busy and stressful, and afterwards I couldn’t imagine that I would forget all the details, but thinking back now, with so much having happened in the meantime, its getting a little fuzzy. I’d like to dedicate October to a series of posts about our wedding with some tips for others who want to keep things simple. It was probably lucky for us that we hadn’t been to many conventional weddings between us. This meant that we didn’t have a good idea of how things were “supposed” to be done and were very free to create a day that suited us perfectly. We were also lucky not to have meddling relatives that wanted to “help”, most of the planning was left to us. If you are a traditionalist, you may be horrified by all the rules we broke, but I do hope it will ...